Leading fashion companies set targets for a circular fashion future

Last spring 64 of the world’s leading fashion companies signed a commitment to accelerate the transition to a circular fashion system. Today, their individual company targets for circularity were released online.

When fashion industry leaders gathered at the May 2017 edition of the world’s largest business event on sustainability in fashion, Copenhagen Fashion Summit, they were encouraged to sign a commitment to help accelerate the industry’s transition to a circular fashion system. The 2020 Circular Fashion System Commitment received immediate support from 64 of the world’s leading fashion companies, representing a total of 142 brands. Among the signatories were adidas, ASOS, Bestseller, Eileen Fisher, H&M, Hugo Boss, Inditex, Kering, Reformation, Target and VF Corp, who by signing, not only declared their support for a more circular fashion system, but also committed to setting a 2020 circular strategy for their company.

Company targets released today
Since the launch of the 2020 Circular Fashion System Commitment, the signatories have been working on setting their own individual targets for 2020, which Global Fashion Agenda and BSR have reviewed. Today their strategic targets for 2020 were released online. In total, 143 targets have been set.

Eva Kruse, CEO of Global Fashion Agenda, says:
“Since the 64 companies signed the commitment, I’ve been very curious to learn about their company targets. We have now reviewed all 143 of the targets, and although the focus areas and level of engagement vary from company to company, they all share a common feature by taking steps to transition to a circular fashion industry. I find that very encouraging.”

Designing for circularity
The signatories have set targets in one or more of the following four areas: Designing for circularity, increasing the volume of used garments collected, increasing the volume of used garments resold, and finally, increasing the share of garments made from recycled post-consumer textile fibres.

Designing for circularity is the area that has received the most attention with a total of 55 company targets set, indicating that many signatories aim to either train their designers in circular design strategies or to implement circular design principles, such as increasing durability, reparability and/or recyclability. H&M is one of the companies that have set a target to roll out dedicated training:

“We signed Global Fashion Agenda’s 2020 Circular Fashion System Commitment since it ties in well with our ambitious vision to become 100% circular and renewable. Part of our 2020 commitment is to develop and roll out training on sustainable materials and sustainable material use to all applicable colleagues and to continue to work on building circularity into the design process for all our products. One of the goals for H&M group is to only use recycled or other sustainably sourced materials by 2030 and to become climate positive throughout our entire value chain by 2040 at the latest,” explains Anna Gedda, Head of Sustainability, H&M group.

An annual progress report will be published for the first time in May 2018 highlighting the signatories’ activities and progress in reaching their targets.